Transboundary Issues Target Shipping in the Pacific Northwest

By Captain Mike Moore, Vice President, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association

The Pacific Northwest is blessed with wide, deep, and protected waterways. It is no surprise that seaports in Washington State and British Columbia developed to take advantage of these natural assets. The region on both sides of the border grew around economic activity tied to maritime operations supporting imports, exports, and coastal movement of a wide range of commodities. In addition, the combined region has the most extensive ferry operations in the world.

Shipping over water is by far the most environmentally friendly transportation mode because so much less energy is needed to move each ton of cargo. And with significant improvements in marine safety over the past several decades cargo vessels have achieved a remarkable “zero” spills record while transiting from sea to or from Puget Sound ports since 1973 (since oil spill data has been officially recorded).

Today, vessel traffic management systems utilize better technology and procedures, vessel designs include more advanced critical system redundancies, and fuel tanks on new ships are protectively located to minimize oil spill risk. Canada and the United States have also fully implemented a highly successful Port State Control program to eliminate substandard vessels.

Contrary to popular belief, there are actually substantially fewer cargo and crude tanker vessels transiting Puget Sound waters today than when traffic peaked in the early 1990s. Freight cargo vessel traffic is down by 900 vessels per year. British Columbia’s vessel traffic has increased, but not enough to offset the reductions on the U.S. side. Crude oil tanker traffic is also down significantly, although there could be an increase if a proposed crude export terminal in Burnaby, B.C. is built.

In total, the U.S. and Canada have a combined 12 ships arriving from sea each day on average. To put this in perspective, the Strait of Juan de Fuca has 1,000 square miles of navigable water between the entrance buoy and the San Juan and Gulf Islands and it is 147 nautical miles to Tacoma from sea. That means these vessel transits are spread out throughout the system with the most focus on interactions existing between the pilot stations at Victoria and Port Angeles in what is known as “the rotary”. Fortunately, the highly successful Cooperative Vessel Traffic System (CVTS), operated jointly by the U.S. and Canada, pays special attention to this area as does the Puget Sound Harbor Safety Committee. The CVTS is a remarkably successful US/Canadian venture operating in joint waters without jurisdictional complications.

So why has shipping become such a political target? Concerns about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions have led to coalitions forming to oppose virtually any marine terminal project. This dynamic has emboldened those opposing any new project or expansion including bulk terminals to move coal and grain, the transportation of crude by rail, vessel or pipeline. Also included are efforts to stop the already under construction and environmentally friendly LNG project in Tacoma designed to provide cleaner fuel to vessels.

In addition, there is the threatened status of the Southern Resident Killer Whales with a relatively new focus on noise reductions from ships.

The sky-is-falling mantra tends to avoid acknowledgment of the safety record, the full suite of risk mitigation measures with government oversight, and ongoing continuous improvements being implemented. While there is no such thing as zero risk, there is the ability to rationally and objectively manage risk within a continuous improvement climate.

Unfortunately, some activists simply see any use of carbon as something to attack regardless of the efficiencies and economy of scale realities offered by maritime shipping operations. Stopping a project, reducing or capping vessel traffic, limiting vessel transits to certain times of the day, implementing routing changes and speed restrictions are all part of a growing set of anti-maritime goals.

In addition, the assertion of Tribal treaty rights has aggressively expanded for fishing area claims with potential conflict with the order and predictability of vessel traffic lanes and the vessel traffic management system.

In the end, the maritime industry will continue to work with federal agencies and other stakeholders to implement rational, scientifically sound, and continuous improvements to improve safety. However, maritime and port industries and those that depend on them must work with elected officials and government authorities to fight irrational efforts to curb maritime activities or risk losing this vital and strategic economic engine that has served our collective region so well.